Snap is getting destroyed after its earnings disaster

Traders at the post where Snap Inc. is traded on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Thomson Reuters Oh, Snap.

The newly public company plummeted as much as 24% to $17.59 on the first day of regular trading after a disappointing earnings report that saw user growth slow to its lowest pace in years.

The stock on Thursday afternoon was trading just above the company's initial-public-offering price of $17. Snap also missed consensus forecasts for adjusted earnings and revenue.

But it wasn't all bad news for stock investors — short sellers are poised to make a killing on the share plunge. The day before the report, they pushed bearish wagers on the stock to the highest level since Snap's March 1 IPO, selling a whopping $100 million short over the past week alone, according to data compiled by the financial analytics firm S3 Partners.

It's sweet redemption for the bearish Snap speculators, who had lost $28.4 million on a mark-to-market basis betting on the company following the IPO, according to S3 data.

On the other side of the ledger is Snap cofounder and CEO Evan Spiegel. Worth roughly $5 billion heading into the earnings release, according to wealth rankings compiled by Bloomberg, Spiegel is out about $1 billion following the stock decline.

Pivotal Research is even more pessimistic, calling for Snap to fall all the way to $9 a share. They noted a "surprising element of seasonality" in the business, while lamenting the risk that Snap wouldn't grow by as much as the firm previously expected.

Some of the biggest banks on Wall Street line up on the other side of the Snap debate. Goldman Sachs has a price target of $27 and believes the company's "audience and engagement represent a unique asset that will benefit from growth and diversification of internet usage and advertiser adoption as both mature."

Citi shares a similar sentiment. While the firm acknowledges that Snap's first earnings report will be a hurdle in the short term, it sees "the low rate of monetization and the high rate of engagement enabling revenue growth and margin leverage over the long-term."